Leadership & Staff

Laura Edwards is the Founder and Board Chair of Women AdvaNCe. She is a trailblazing civic leader with a passion for women’s issues, social justice, environment, and the arts. Edwards has dedicated decades to various boards in her home state of North Carolina, including the NC Arts Council, Penland School of Crafts, and NC Equity. She is the Co-Founder and Board Emeritus of Lillian’s List of NC. She currently serves as Trustee on the Julian Price Family Foundation and the Educational Foundation at UNC-CH. Edwards has been awarded the Order of the Long Leaf Pine, one of the most prestigious civilian honors in our state. She lives with her partner and children in Chapel Hill.

Ann Gerhardt serves as a consultant and coach to nonprofit women leaders. She has spent a career working for the rights, health and well-being of women and their families. On her docket have been child care advocacy and training; women’s reproductive health in the U.S. and Africa, launch of the abortion pill and emergency contraception, teen pregnancy prevention; domestic violence and financial literacy programs. In the last several years she has worked on the launch of the Affordable Care Act, and on AmeriCorps programs serving veterans and in workforce development. Two of her most satisfying coaching and consulting relationships have been with UNC Moxies and the Community Refugee Project. She earned the Z. Smith Reynolds sabbatical award and served on the Board of the NC Council of Women. She has a Master’s in Public Health Policy and Administration from UNC, is a loyal Tar Heel, and a Buddhist meditation teacher. Ann lives in Chapel Hill with her husband and enjoys spending time with her family and friends, gardening, and going to the gym.

Janeen Gingrich has worked in the social justice arena for 20+ years, starting out as an overnight shelter manager at a shelter for battered women in rural SW Virginia. Her background is in clinical social work, which has given her extensive experience facilitating groups and conversations in diverse situations. Janeen has spent the past 14 years of her career focused on advancement work for non-profits, with an emphasis on capacity building, leadership development, and grassroots fundraising. Janeen has built non-profit development programs from the ground up for a range of organizations, with budgets from $250,000 to $20M annually, and with local, statewide, and international focuses. Her fundraising expertise includes annual campaign development, data-driven strategy, grassroots fundraising, foundation relations, strategic partnership, board development and volunteer organizing. Janeen in currently the interim CEO at www.shiftnc.org.

Antionette Kerr is a nonprofit leader, syndicated journalist, author, and lover of all poetry. The Lexington, NC native spent her youth living in pockets of economically-distressed neighborhoods. She credits a family filled with activists for sparking her compassion for people and passion for storytelling. Antionette studied journalism and African American history at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she began researching and writing about the influence of race, gender,

and politics. She is Executive Director of Lexington Housing Community Development Corporation, where she founded Empowerment Magazine. Some highlights in her recent years include being named a Z. Smith Reynolds Sabbatical Award Recipient, a TEDx Penry Street presenter and the inaugural US recipient of the Yale Publishing Course Innovative Leader Scholarship.

Kim Pevia is an experienced life strategist, an engaging keynote speaker, and a uniquely skilled experiential style transformational workshop facilitator. Her company, K.A.P., Inner Prizes, specializes in identifying and addressing the issues that can keep us stuck by continually developing a personalized toolbox to help us hurdle over them. Her favorite work is done in circles. Diversity of favorite topics include Emotional intelligence, Gifts of Conflict, Impacts of Historical Trauma, Cultural Healing, Innocuous Nature of Fear. Born and educated in Baltimore, MD she currently lives in Robeson County, NC where her roots run deep as a member of the Lumbee Tribe. She serves on many local, state and national boards that support community activism and local economy through arts, food, culture and tourism. She is a writer and is the founder of Artist Market-Pembroke, providing retail opportunities for local and regional artists in southeast North Carolina.

Stephanie Nesbitt received her law degree from The University of Michigan Law School and is certified as a Superior Court Mediator, Family Financial Mediator, and a Clerk of Court Mediator. Having served as an Assistant District Attorney, and also as an arbitrator for sixteen years, she has vast experience with the court system, the law community and the public. In her more than 20 years of law practice, she has earned a reputation for unwavering integrity and fairness.

Ms. Nesbitt is a member of the North Carolina Bar Association, the Wake County Bar Association, and the Michigan State Bar. She serves as a committee chair of the Clerk Mediation Committee of the Dispute Resolution Commission, in her capacity as a Court Management Specialist at the NC Administrative Office of the Courts.

Ericka Faircloth is a 2014 graduate of UNC-Greensboro and a native of Laurinburg, North Carolina. She has been an Energy and Water Justice Organizer with Clean Water for NC in Durham since late 2014. She is Co-chair of the UNCG Native American Alumni Association as well as a graduate of the UNC Native Leadership Institute. Ericka is a standing representative for the Coalition of Woodland Nations, and has been a leader in the North Carolina movement to stop the Atlantic Coast Pipeline, as well as a volunteer in the North Dakota Access Pipeline movement.

Staff

Executive Director

Naomi Randolph is an experienced nonprofit leader, award- winning trainer and a community capacity builder. She has spent the last 21 years focused on the holistic development of nonprofit organizations and communities across the country. Ms. Randolph’s experience as an employee, director, volunteer, and board member in the nonprofit sector inspired her to establish a consulting firm in 1999. She has spent her professional life as a consultant and trainer in the areas of organizational development, program development, strategic planning, leadership development, community building / organizing, and diversity. Ms. Randolph has based her life’s works on the principle of helping organizations hold fast to their organizational vision in order to facilitate social change for our society as a whole. Ms. Randolph has worked for the advancement of grassroots organizations, faith based groups, community development organizations, small businesses, corporations, local, state, and federal government entities, in rural, urban, and international settings. A North Carolina native she attributes her love of humanity and commitment to serve to her family’s legacy of civic leadership in the state.

Editorial Director and Communications Coordinator

Stephanie Carson went to school to be a foreign war correspondent, earning degrees in Broadcast News and International Politics, and now finds herself writing about the rights of people who live and work here at home. After working for a major news network for several years as an investigative producer, Stephanie moved to North Carolina with her husband and two daughters for better work-life balance and she adds “while I still had some of my soul left.” A recipient of two Emmy’s and an Edward R. Murrow Award for Excellence in Journalism, Stephanie is a self-described travel junkie, craft beer and cider lover, and a “Ski Mom” to her two daughters who race competitively on the slopes of North Carolina in the winter.

In October 2017, President Trump announced that the administration would immediately stop reimbursing health insurance companies for providing legally required discounts on deductibles and other out-of-pocket costs on Marketplace plans to eligible enrollees. The cancellation of payment for these con...

Words cannot capture the excitement our team at Women AdvaNCe feels after our time with you last Thursday. Your enthusiasm, engagement, and generosity lifts us on this Monday morning. We look forward to having you in our community. There are opportunities to write for us through the Writer's Colle...

In October 2017, President Trump announced that the administration would immediately stop reimbursing health insurance companies for providing legally required discounts on deductibles and other out-of-pocket costs on Marketplace plans to eligible enrollees. The cancellation of payment for these con...

Words cannot capture the excitement our team at Women AdvaNCe feels after our time with you last Thursday. Your enthusiasm, engagement, and generosity lifts us on this Monday morning. We look forward to having you in our community. There are opportunities to write for us through the Writer's Colle...